Donald Trump ‘worst perpetrator’ of fake news: UN special rapporteur

The President of the United States is the "worst" perpetrator of misinformation on the internet, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion David Kaye said in an interview published today.

"Governments are real offenders when it comes to disinformation," said Kaye. "In my own country, the United States, the worst perpetrator of false information is the President of the United States."

The problem of fake news emanating from governments should be covered by journalists, the rapporteur said.

Platforms such as Google, Facebook or Twitter can help the broader fight against disinformation — bots, foreign interference... — but should not remove content, Kaye said. "The platforms, I think, can do things that are more technical as long as they are not evaluating content. There are things they can do. They can’t just zap it and say, “This is fake news, it’s off the platform.”

According to Kaye, platforms should focus on reducing spam and bot accounts rather than on policing content. And even bots are "tricky, because there are good bots and bad bots."

Google, Facebook and Twitter are under intense pressure from the European Commission to tackle fake news ahead of the European election in May 2019.

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Michael Iger

This realization is shocking, but not surprising, given what Trump has been doing these past years. Many have called him a chronic liar circulating fake news to bolster his claims. Its his enablers, overwhelmingly in the Republican Party that approves of such tactics and one has to wonder about their character in general. They accept and act on it knowing full well he’s primarily a pack of lies. Its because they benefit, but the truth is sinking in for the rest of the country.

Trump is smearing the GOP going forward as support for him and the party shrink. The party is marginalizing itself with the youth and will shrink to irrelevance as older voters pass away with no one to replace them in the party in the same numbers. The older cynical Republican politicians that retired this year took their last minute loot in passing the tax bill and ran. Its shortsighted thinking with Trump the most opportunistic in the moment and a fitting leader representing their thinking these days.

Posted on 12/26/18 | 9:54 PM CET

Corni Tim

The last think I’ll do is to trust something coming from UN including Mr Kay. A pathetic irrelevant organization that fell into oblivion and propagation of a wide range of falsehoods at the largest scale imaginable.

Posted on 12/27/18 | 4:02 AM CET

Latimer Alder

President Trump : 60,000,000 votes

Mr Kay : 0 votes

Just saying

Posted on 12/27/18 | 7:53 AM CET

Joseph Madden

Trump is a fake President. He is repulsive mental blot on humanity. He represents everything that is untruthful, unreliable, demeaning, lacking in diplomacy, honor and respect. He is what we call the cancer of humanity. We will start to remove this cancer come January when the Democrats finally get the House and do the real work the GOP failed to do: Investigate and charge him for his crimes. We need to restore sanity to Washington, where respect, honor and truth supersede falsehoods, hate and outright demeaning of humanity. Trump never could make AMERICA great again (it has always been great until Trump), he tried to make it ugly and despicable and untrustworthy.

Posted on 12/27/18 | 12:21 PM CET

European Federalist

The most prolific producer of disinflation is the Russian regime.

Trump, just like the countless trolls on these very pages are just one of their agents.

Posted on 12/27/18 | 2:06 PM CET

European Federalist

*disinformation

Posted on 12/27/18 | 2:07 PM CET

Steven Pipkin

Latimer Alder you should look up what non sequitur means.

Posted on 12/27/18 | 7:28 PM CET

Franz Trenck

David Kaye, who happens to be American liberal parasite stationed in California, imagines that UN badge gives credence to his slander of political opponents.

Parasites like Kaye are the reason why we have populism.

Posted on 12/28/18 | 11:24 AM CET

Magyar Lazac

@ Latimer Alder
and the rest of the tuba band claiming some mandate from a thoroughly corrupted election might consider that the 60,000,000 votes counted for Trump pale in comparison to the 63,000,000 counted for Clinton and the millions more to other candidates. The maga morons are a minority…..they’re winners only in their own minds.

Posted on 12/28/18 | 6:35 PM CET

contango one

@ Joseph Madden

hey Jo here’s an idea for you for the first tuesday in november of 20:

buy some popcorn n some cashews sit comfortably in ur rocking chair n watch the prez pick up a second term

Posted on 12/28/18 | 6:53 PM CET

contango one

@ the U.N: it would be a good idea for the good of humanity if can soon fade into nothingness

Posted on 12/28/18 | 6:56 PM CET

Michael Kuhns

The worst perpetrator of fake news are the biased media – like Der Speigel.

Der Spiegel’s star reporter Claas Relotius was an award winning “ journalist”. His awards mainly based on negative articles about the USA that fit his editor’s worldview- the US is full of racist gun nuts that voted for the anti-Christ.

And the Germans loved his articles. It confirmed their views on the US as being inherently bad people. Unfortunately the star reporter made it all up, it was not news but was fiction.

To the US his articles are beyond offensive. They confirm my bias that Germany is anti American. It confirms my vote for Trump. It confirms my opinion that NATO doesn’t work for the US, why should we spend billions defending people that just don’t like us.

I expect politicians to stretch the truth, and expect the news media to report news with no bias. In today’s world, the news media has become worse than the politicians.